5 Questions with Eson Kim

Eson will be reading from her essay Alfresco on October 24, 2013 at 7:30pm as part of the NJ Literary Artists Fellowship Showcase.
The reading will take place at
in the Chase Room
of the Madison Public Library
39 Keep Street
Madison, NJ 07940
Click here for directions
There is a suggested donation of $10. All tickets will be available at the door on the evening of the readings. No advanced ticket sales. 

1. Where did you get the idea for Alfresco? More than ten years ago I lost touch with my cousin. She’d moved around a few times, and I had my share of upheavals. Life got in the way, and we drifted apart. But then my mother bumped into her a few years ago, and this brought the warm memories back. In many ways, my relationship with Pree (not her real name, by the way) was one of the best parts of my childhood. And yet too many people thought I was close to her out of some goodness inside of me. But it wasn’t a sense of charity that drew me to her; it was complete admiration and love for the remarkable person she was.

As a young, inexperienced child, I honestly didn’t know why Pree was not more appreciated for the great, kind, and capable person that she was. Now, of course, I know. It’s still true that human beings are socialized to define beauty in such narrow ways, and because of this limited definition, everyone misses out. But I was too shy and young at the time to articulate my affection and respect for her. So Alfrescowas a tribute of sorts, a belated acknowledgement.

2. In the description of Alfresco, you mentioned that the narrator’s cousin seems to have it all: a posh New York City apartment, a famous sister, and lots of spending money, but she lacks the ability to acknowledge her own beauty. What is it about beauty that is central to this character’s development?

The narrator learns by watching Pree that there is an invisible type of beauty that society doesn’t typically see or value. And so the narrator must bear witness to the way Pree is isolated and ignored—a hard lesson to learn about the backwards way the world works sometimes. 

So we must decide for ourselves: what type of beauty will we value and promote?

3. You support Untethered Reads, a community book club program where free books are placed in random public locations to promote reading. Where is the most random place you’ve left a book?

Good question! Untethered Reads is still rather new, so we’ve stuck with more common public areas like food courts, train stations, and coffee shops. However, one of the best experiences I’ve had was when I decided to leave a book in a shopping cart at the grocery store. An hour later, the skies turned cloudy, and I wondered if I’d made a horrible mistake leaving the book out in the open where it could get soaked. But when I checked the Facebook and Tumblr accounts, a reader ecstatically posted that she’d just picked up the book. She was thrilled because she was having a terrible day, and this perked her right up. She became a great participant in the program by reading and passing along the book
4. We asked you to recommended books and one of the books you listed was Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. Why do you like this book?

I grew up during a time when British Literature written by male authors monopolized English classes. So when a teacher recommended this book, it significantly changed me as a reader. Each page seemed to crackle as I turned it. I’d never before felt so alive as a reader.

I had no idea that an Asian woman could write about her culture in a way that was so bold and free. She broke through the demure stereotype and told a wonderfully layered and complex story.

About five years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Maxine Hong Kingston at a book signing. She was promoting her latest book, which I also bought, but I really wanted her to sign my 1989 edition of Woman Warrior. And while we didn’t have a long conversation, I gave her the gist of how Woman Warrior influenced me all those years ago. She was incredibly gracious, and later when I opened my book I noticed that she’d signed it: “To Eson—Sister!”Maybe she signs all her books that way because she has such a laid back, welcoming demeanor. But to me, it encapsulated how the book really made me feel all those years ago—like somewhere out there I had a literary sister who reframed my literary world in a way that included me in it.
5. If you could live the life of any character from any book, who would you choose and why?  Wow.  This is a totally unfair question to ask a book lover! Let’s see. So many of the books I enjoy are incredibly sad with a lot of loss involved. While I adore those books, I’m not sure I’d want to live the life of any of those characters, that’s for sure.

I’d probably have to dig back to Jo from Little Women.  I can’t really see myself living a life without writing, so she’s a good choice. She resonates with me for her tomboy tendencies, deeply felt passions, and fierce family loyalty. I don’t know how I’d manage wearing dresses all the time, and I’d probably end up killing Amy at some point, but outside of that, I think it would be a pretty solid life.

To learn more about Eson, visit our website

You can also find additional information on our website about the Literary Artist Fellowship program. 

5 Questions with Kathleen Graber

Kathleen will be reading a selection from her poems. The reading will be held on October 18, 2013 at 7:30pm as part of the NJ Literary Artists Fellowship Showcase.

The reading will take place at The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences
120 Long Beach Blvd.
Loveladies, NJ 08008
Click here for directions

There is a suggested donation of $10. All tickets will be available at the door on the evening of the readings. No advanced ticket sales.

1. Where do you find inspiration for your poetry?
I try to always be open to inspiration, but, if the truth be told, I rarely feel inspired.  If I waited to be inspired to write a poem, none of my poems would ever come into being.  That said, when I sit down to write, I usually begin by trying to describe something that happened to me recently or something that I saw that has stuck in my mind.  I trust that if something has stuck, it has stuck for a reason.  If nothing has stuck, I pick up a book and read until I have an idea.  When I catch myself thinking, I start to write.

2. You teach Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. What do you hope your students will take away from your class?
For the most part, I teach poetry workshops, and in that context I hope that students come away better equipped to make new drafts and to improve the drafts they have already written.  I like to think that my job is simply to provide tools:  If someone has only ever used a hammer, I might say, “You are very good at building things.  Have you ever trying to take something apart?  Here is a saw.  Here is crowbar.  Give them a try.”

3. At what age did you write your first poem and what was it about? 
I was in my middle thirties when I began to try to write poems.  I don’t remember much about the earliest poems, but the first poem that I wrote that actually seemed to work was about a turtle I found one morning on the playground of the elementary school where I taught.  When I was a teenager, I wrote rhymed love poems.  Didn’t everyone?

4. You were an Amy Lowell Traveling Scholar. The annual scholarship is to support travel abroad for gifted American-born poets. Where did you travel and what did your experience teach you?
For a variety of reasons, I traveled quite widely and nomadically around Europe.  I spent significant time in the southwestern part of England and also in Malta.  My experience taught me that I can live for a year on what I can fit in a suitcase, including knives, a pan, a cutting board, and a coffee pot.  I learned that I don’t really have to speak to be understood. I learned that it is quite easy to survive with only limited heat and hot water.  I learned one doesn’t have to be able to drink the tap water to be reasonably happy.  I learned to deeply appreciate what we think of as very basic necessities: a roof, for instance.  Good plumbing.

5. The picture you sent us has a dog in it. What is your pup’s name and what are your favorite activities that the two of you do?
My dog is named Patrick, He is a rescue dog and he already knew his name when he came into my life.  Patrick likes to go to the beach, but he doesn’t like the water.  He really likes to go for long walks around town and in the park.  He also loves to sniff and chew his bones.  I cannot say we do the last of these things ‘together,’ but I provide him with the right opportunities.  


To learn more about Kathleen, visit our website

You can also find additional information on our website about the Literary Artist Fellowship program. 

5 Questions with Peter Murphy

Peter will read poems from his new manuscript, Anonymous Fever, including several in the voice of "John Doe," a man lost in time and space, disconnected from others and increasingly, from himself. Audiences at previous readings have told Peter they were grateful for his suggestion that they might want to hang on to their chairs. The reading will be held on October 18, 2013 at 7:30pm as part of the NJ Literary Artists Fellowship Showcase.

The reading will take place at The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences
120 Long Beach Blvd.
Loveladies, NJ 08008
Click here for directions

There is a suggested donation of $10. All tickets will be available at the door on the evening of the readings. No advanced ticket sales.

1. You were born in Wales and grew up in New York City. Does this make you an aggressive, yet, polite poet?

I'm not usually a rude guy and don't believe in shocking an audience for the sake of shock, but polite is too "polite" a word. I like to create images that will startle a reader into a kind of slanted consciousness where familiar things appear slightly off. For example, I have a line in a poem that refers, not to restless leg syndrome, but to a more common disease, "restless prick syndrome." (Okay, bleep the previous sentences if you must.)

A student in an alternative school in Cape May told me. "Man, you wear a suit jacket, but your poems, it's like they're wearing a leather jacket."

In terms of my origins, I have written a lot about New York, and in recent years, I am writing more and more about Wales, but I am actually a New Jersey Poet. I have lived in the Atlantic City area most of my life, and my literary mentors are Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and alas, Stephen Dunn.

2. You direct the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway. What do you hope writers will take away from these getaways?

When I was teaching full time at Atlantic City High School I never had enough time to write. I tried what the experts suggested and wrote with my students, but I was writing for fourteen year olds, not my ideal audience. I tried waking up an hour earlier to write, but I was already getting up at 5:20, so I just fell asleep at the keyboard. In the late 80's and 90's I was fortunate to be invited to Yaddo and two other artist colonies. The conditions were so good, I couldn't bear to write the rest of the year. "Murphy, you phony," I said to myself, "how can you call yourself a writer if you only write one month a year?" So I decided to rent a hotel room one weekend a month creating a mini artist colony, and it worked. Most of the poems I have written in the last twenty-five years were composed in a Marriott Courtyard, a Holiday Inn Express or a Hilton Garden Inn. Other writers asked me "How do you find time to write?" When I told them I hole up in a hotel, I kept hearing, "I wish I could go with you." In 1994 I invited a dozen other writers to join me at a hotel in Cape May, and that began the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway. We offer writers challenging workshops, time to write and supportive criticism. Now in its 21st year the Getaway attracts over 200 poets, fiction and nonfiction writers from all over the country. In 2012 we partnered with Richard Stockton College and moved to the Seaview Hotel in Galloway. Our participants leave the Getaway having written more and better then they thought possible in one weekend.

We also offer other writing getaways around New Jersey, New England and in the UK. We wrote in Scotland last summer, and we will be writing in Wales next July to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dylan Thomas's birth. 


3. You’ve operated heavy equipment, managed a night club and driven a cab. How have these jobs influenced your writing?

Because I was drunk for much of my adolescence I flunked out of three colleges in three semesters. I figured I was stupid, so I took whatever work I could get. I have written about working construction and working at a bar, but the best thing these jobs did for me was make me realize that I did not want to do them for the rest of my life. After sobering up at the ripe old age of twenty-one, I  thought maybe I'm not so stupid and tried a few more colleges until, thank God, I finally graduated.


4. You have been an educational advisor to a number of PBS television series on poetry. How do you help them translate written word for a visual medium?

I wish I could take credit for that, but mostly I helped write teacher guides suggesting how to use the television programs to support teaching poetry. The last one I wrote was for Bill Moyer's Fooling with Word which is still online.


5. We’re curious…the picture you sent us had Qdoba Mexican Grill and Starbucks in the background. Was this a subtle hint where we could take you for lunch?

You have better eyes than I do. I see the Starbucks sign, but I can't read the other one. I'm not fond of Mexican food, but I love coffee. That said, I'll be happy with a bottle of water during my reading.

To learn more about Peter, by visiting our website

You can also find additional information on our website about the Literary Artist Fellowship program.